I originally intended to make this a work in progress thread, but I somehow managed to finish my helmet first :lol.
This will also serve as my introduction to the TDH community. Much like everyone here, I've been a life-long Star Wars fan.
I built my first Boba Fett costume somewhere around 1996. It was extremely basic and budget, and included an unaltered Don Post 95.
The costume wasn't fancy or very accurate, but I had a ton of fun. It served me well for the theatrical premieres of the Original Trilogy Special Editions and all three prequels. I'd pull it out occasionally for a halloween party or another event that required a costume.

About a year ago, I decided I'd try to improve it and see what would happen if I put some effort into it. I started with the helmet, as I figured anything I did would be an improvement on the stock paint job. That's when I began surfing around the internet and I came across this site.

The first order of business was cutting out the "visor" area. I tried using a Dremel, but I found it awkward and not very precise (my skill may have had something to do it). I ended up just using a sharp utility knife. The edges were much more clean. The trick was making the inside edge of the mandibles even. By inside edge, I mean the edge that faces inside the helmet and what the visor will eventually attach to. I didn't really get my head around that before starting out, which would have helped.
I subsequently ordered a visor from tvisor.com.
I think this is the single biggest improvement that can be made to this helmet. A full and proper visor looks way better. This isn't to say that there isn't a ton of other improvements to made, but it just looks "right" with a real visor.

I also popped off the ear cap to removed the rangefinder and stalk. The rangefinder never stayed up and I had to wedge a piece of paper to keep it propped up when I wore it. It seem like a bit of **** shoot to see if the cap would pop off cleanly or break. Fortunately, the plastic cap popped off nicely. I used bondo glazing putty to fill in the LucasFilm stamp on the back and on the bottom of the mandibles to make them more even (not pictured).

I used acetone to remove most the silver paint and some of the green and red paint. I could have removed it all, but I wasn't a big fan of handling the acetone and I don't think it made much of difference in the end (thankfully). After thoroughly cleaning the helmet, I applied Rustoleum grey primer.

I wasn't sure how to approach the painting and looked at a number of tutorial and methods on this site and elsewhere. I had originally intended to just paint it "clean" and topically add the weathering and damage. However, I came across WelshWarrior123's excellent series of tutorials on youtube. I can't recommend them highly enough for anyone considering trying a layered paint job. It's one thing to read about how to do something and another thing entirely to see it being done.
This first part in the 26 episode series can be found at How to paint a boba fett helmet, Episode 1 - YouTube
It definitely gave me the confidence to give a layered paint job a go. He wasn't painting a Don Post helmet and he used an airbrush, but the principles are the same.

I used AFFO$ís PAINT LIST FOR THE AIRBRUSH CHALLENGED with a only a few substitutions for colours I had trouble finding.I used RafalFetts excellent templates to sort out the layers. The resources on this site are amazing.I also only used three layers on the helmet (with a few topic touch ups and additions). I combined layers when needed and followed the directions more precisely at others.

I started with the back panels and applied Testors Chrome spray paint, I used RafalFett's templates with reverse tracing paper to mark out the layer, applied liquid mask and then applied the next layer of spray paint (grey). I would peel off the liquid masking fluid, repeat the process and apply the Hunt Club Green. WelshWarrior explains this process well in his videos.

I taped off more of the helmet, applied layers until I applied the black paint. The third shot above shows the mostly completed back panels. I did some topical touch ups after this pic was taken, but it shows the layered back panels.

I painted the right ear with Krylon Ultra-Flat Khaki, taped off the kill stripes and used Rustoleum Yellow Inverted Striping Paint with misting Rustoleum orange for them. I painted the left ear with the same Spruce Green as the the dome.

This next stage freaked me out a bit. I applied Vaspar flat Merlot and thought it looked pink!!! It looked much better after it dried (and inside) as the subsequent photos show. That was a relief.

I later applied some touch ups, extra topical weathering with brushes and decals from Lucksy31. The DP 95 is a little smaller than the screen accurate helmet, but I feel that the decals still worked. I thought the accuracy of the decals made up for an issues of scale with the smaller helmet. I also glued in the visor with crazy glue and hot glue. It's not going anywhere.

I'm planning to take some better photos of my completed bucket tonight. I'll post those soon along with how I finished the inside and my final weathering and clear coat. TDH has been quite the amazing resource. I'm happy I stumbled across it. Please let me know if you have any questions about anything I did and I'll be happy to answer them.

Thanks Jayvee. It's been a learning experience, but I've been enjoying the process.

As promised, here are some pics of the finished product.
I'm pretty darn happy with the result. It's not 100% accurate, but it's a big improvement on the stock DP 95.
I used ultra flat black spray paint and ground up pastels to dirty it up and finished it off with Testors Dullcote.
I like how it knocked down the shine and gave it a nice finish.

Feedback is welcome, but be gentle :)
This was the experience I needed before my Boba Maker armour arrived. I have plans to replace this one day, but it will be a long time before I finish the costume and get to point where I'm upgrading.

One thing I didn't expect was that the new visor made the helmet a bit smaller on the inside. I found my nose was up against the visor when I first put it on. To fix this, I covered a strip of foam with moisture wicking material and velcroed it to the front above the visor. It works well and is comfortable. It changed the angle enough to get my nose off the visor, but it doesn't look askew.

I've read a couple of posts about phone cameras over saturating images, but didn't think I'd have that problem, since I have an iPhone. I guess I was wrong :facepalm. The burgundy in the phone camera pics in the top post looks rather pinkish, but the pics with the DSLR in my second post look closer to the actual color.

The taping was a hassle. It looked a lot easier when Welsh Warrior was doing it on the Youtube tutorial. There was a lot of adjusting and re-applying of the tape. In hindsight, I probably should have used a stencil, but I avoided have the paint leak and the subsequent touch ups by going with the tape method. Decals are always another option and they would be the easiest route by far, even if there would be some minor scaling issues with the Don Post helmet.

Much appreciated BobasDent1138, feel free to post here or PM if you have any questions along the way. There is some hope for a vinyl bucket and I learned a ton along the way that I can apply to the rest of my build.

I found some graphite paper elsewhere, but it didn't work as well and came in big sheets that you bought individually.
I highly recommend the ground up pastels. You can apply, reapply and get it just right before putting on the dullcote and locking it into place. It's more forgiving than a rattlecan and I like the "dirt and grime" feel it gives it.

Thanks for the pic! I tried some graphite paper and couldn't get it to show up on the paint, guess i'll have to try it again. I'm definitely going to try your pastel technique, I was scared to death to try and weather anything with a rattlecan. If you're going back to Michaels, you can print a 40% off coupon from their website that is good on anything in the store. I think you can use your smartphone now too for the coupon. Thanks again.